Found this in a discussion topic on an aviation forum I go on, and thought it would make an interesting discussion topic here..

Research has revealed the reasons women have sex - and men could be surprised by the results.

It shows that for every woman expecting the earth to move, there are two with more practical motives.

From relieving boredom, to keeping the peace or curing a headache, women have sex for many reasons but romance and passion come rather low on the list, a new book has revealed.

One woman even admitted to having sex just so her husband would put the rubbish out.

"Research has shown most men find most women at least somewhat sexually attractive, whereas most women do not find most men sexually attractive at all," Why Women Have Sex authors Cindy Meston and David Buss said.

Having apparently discounted physical attraction, the 1000 women interviewed by the Texas University professors gave a huge range of reasons for sleeping with a man.

One said she did it for a spiritual experience, proclaiming: "It's the closest thing to God."

But mostly the explanations were far more mundane, with 84 per cent admitting to having sex just to ensure a quiet life or to bargain for household chores.

One woman said: "I have sex to relieve the boredom because it's easier than fighting. Plus it gives me something to do."

While it may not come as welcome news, some women have sex out of sympathy, with one admitting: "I slept with a couple of guys because I felt sorry for them."

But many have more selfish motives, with financial or material rewards a major factor.

In one survey of students, nearly one in 10 women admitted to "having sex for presents".

Others said: "He bought me a nice dinner", "he spent a lot of money on me early on", "he showed me he had an extravagant lifestyle".

And rather than love or romance, for many women sex is just about fun.

Six in 10 university students said they slept with a male friend who was not their boyfriend.

Remember how the runway lights looked one night long ago when you were lost and found your way, and how-you still dont know?

Ah, lies, damn lies and statistics ... The thing with statistics is only a cross section of women are surveyed, it's not taking into account the whole of America, or even the whole of Texas so when they say six out of ten uni students, remember it's only the six out of ten that were surveyed, rather than six out of ten women worldwide/countrywide/statewide etc.

Anyway, hand on heart, I have never ever EVER had sex for any of those reasons and neither have any of my female friends. I'm sure there are women out there that have done that but I like to think that's a rarity. To be honest, my female friends (and me) see sex as an emotional connection, not as a reason to get our partners to take out the rubbish and certainly not for financial gain, mainly because my friends and I are not prostitutes.

I know a lot more men that see sex as a toy; the number of my male friends that have slept with women only to be left wimpering "b-b-b-but I thought she loved me but she only loved my money" (or similar) is zero. The number of female friends that have cried about men that have just gotten them into bed for a specific purpose is sadly a lot higher.

I agree - these sort of surveys are rubbish. They are never properly designed, and never properly reported in the media.

I personally pay no attention to these sorts of things, because they can never be objective, they simply reflect the ideas of the time, or the ideas of the researchers, or the ideas of the journalists who report them. If a survey had been done into whether women were equally as intelligent as men in the 19th century, what do you think it would have concluded? Bearing in mind that women couldn't vote, and were the legal property of their husbands.

I remember that report that was all over the media a couple of years ago, "Women talk more than men". It was reported everywhere, essentially because of the sexism of society (the implication was, how shocking - women dare to talk more than men! Let's report it, it will make a good story). What's more interesting though is that anthropologists knew it couldn't be true - when conversations are recorded women talk less than men in all societies and in nearly all situations, because they are socially inferior, and inferior groups are not allowed to talk as much. It's the same for racial groups or social classes. So one anthropologist followed up the reference: turns out it was taken from a book, where someone estimated that women talk more than men!!! So there never was any truth in it anyway. What's more telling though, is that not a single news outlet published the news that the report had been exposed as groundless.

The report described above seems to be run-of-the-mill misogyny to me. Very little in it accords with my experience of life or sex.

EDIT: and it will have been primarily released to publicise the book mentioned at the beginning. These things are great for selling books.

These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.

I agree with both LME and Snail. That 'research' is rubbish - ok, it might be true for some women, but a minority I would imagine. I have never had sex for those reasons either. I mean what are you supposed to say "hey honey, I had sex with you, so now you have to take out the rubbish" - I wonder how that would actually go down with the majority of men! I think it'd just dent their egos for a start...

snail wrote:What a surprise for such an objective, independent, high-quality newspaper as the Daily Mail . . .

hehe. Whenever someone is being dramatic or something in the media has been blown out of proportion, my Dad always describes it as Daily Mail "They're being very Daily Mail", or "It's all got very Daily Mail".

Dont worry, all news papers are the same - I have never seen a well constructed report on an aviation related matter in any newspaper.. im sure the same goes for snail and animal related reports, therefore probably means journalists nowadays are more worried about selling news papers than delivering real facts.

Remember how the runway lights looked one night long ago when you were lost and found your way, and how-you still dont know?

I occasionally read the sun, my hubby buys it not me. I just take everything with a pinch of salt and really read like a comic rather than anything that can be taken seriouslyI do agree most surveys are flawed and people don't always give honest answers about their sex lives. I remember when I was younger and a few friends all filled in a survey for a mag about sex and we made stuff up because we thought it was funny not because we seriously wanted to take part. Also if you were filling it in and your partner became interested some people may not put truthful answers when they know he is seeing what they put.There are always extremes and I believe alot of woman will have sex to stop there husband nagging for it (and vice versa) - very sad though